Winter Studio

Snow Fields, 24″x30″.

 

This time of the year always brings of thoughts of change and transition, loss and renewal. As 2019 has rolled over into 2020, these reflections are much more intense, intricate, and prolonged for me, as I recently lost my mother…a major life event; a huge transition.

My father-in-law, not a religious man nor particularly self-reflective, used to have a timely  observation in times of trouble. It went something like this: “The chapters of the good book begin with ‘And it came to pass…’ They don’t begin with ‘And it came to stay…”

The things/people/practices that we love don’t always come to stay, any more than the difficult or painful situations. It is one of the things that is interesting about mindfulness practice, that as we focus on the moment, the moment is gone. And then the next, and the next, and the next…

My understanding of mindfulness is more like riding a wave, the mind following each moment along the way with focused attention. I discussed this form of happiness as it applies to a creative practice in an earlier blog post, “Creativity and Happiness”.

https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/creativity-and-happiness/

And this brings us to the winter studio. As life is quieter and the colors less vivid outside of it than  during the warmer months, the potency of the creative life inside intensifies.

Snow cover bounces light into the studio and makes a perfect neutral foil for open color exploration within. Instead of open windows and doors inviting in the sound of the stream and birds, I often play the radio or listen to podcasts or music. The summer feel of expansiveness is replaced by a distillation of energy as focus narrows and intensifies.

 

Embracing Pink, oil on board, 3 panels of 8″x8″/8″x10″/8″x8″.

My winter work often feels sunlit. Without the canopy of leaves covering our hamlet in the central Catskills, the sun streams at a dramatic slant into my house, my studio, and the yoga studio where I practice and teach…and then is gone, as day moves quickly into evening. We count the minutes of returning daylight…

 

Angle of Light, 48″x48″, recently finished.

In December I ordered an enticing assortment of custom-stretched linen for my winter work, and now have, at the ready, this stack of canvases in an array of sizes and formats:

 

 

I started work immediately on the largest one, a 44″x66″, almost finished:

 

 

I am also generating ideas for my next Atlas Project installation, this one focusing on rivers and streams, exploring the ecology of my local watershed. In my Atlas/Forms of Water show I solved several problems that I saw carry over from the previous Atlas Project installation. At issue now are verbal/written components more than visual ones: how to get my “Mapping Memory” stories in a more accessible form; and how to bring more natural history and climate change discussion into the installation.

 

Riverbed Map #3, linocut/monotype on paper, 6″x12″; a map image of the Esopus, Stonyclove, and Warner Creeks; and the Oxclove that runs behind my studio.

I am seeing stream-like formations wherever I go…including places I have been many (for this  image, thousands!) of times. Can you tell what we are looking at?

 

 

And the other day I saw this gorgeous Motherwell painting in a catalogue that I have in my studio. Viewed vertically rather than as the horizontal that it is…another stream…

 

 

A few paint-mixing sessions with my good friend Jenny Nelson in her winter studio have yielded new teaching tools. My color-mixing workshop (next held at the WSA, June 22-23) brings the student back to primaries and how all color evolves from there, which is a very complex undertaking.

Our intention with this collaboration was to pretty much do the opposite of that detailed breaking down of color, instead creating simple, limited palette exercises—using mixtures or primaries from the tube— for new students or those who feel color-blocked.

 

First up: mixing neutrals from just a few tubes of mixtures.

 

I will use some of these prompts in my next workshop at the WSA. Constructing/Deconstructing the Landscape (April 17-19) focuses on compositional strength, so a few structured color shortcuts to augment this emphasis are a welcome tool.

 

Blues, keeping it simple.

 

Mixing a warm palette, just two colors and black and white.

These were the palettes that evolved as we brainstormed and mixed, discarding some earlier versions. Now we will each re-do these on paper in our studios with better placement and clear labeling for sharing with our students.

 

Greens. This more for my students!

 

Our ongoing conversations about our classes and workshops always include the abstract/landscape discussion, since Jenny teaches abstraction. Mixing color is one thing when you are using a reference of any sort, including working from life, even if you will likely want to tweak and adjust. It is quite another when you have not even a  suggestion of a road map and mixing your palette is the first step in figuring out your abstract painting on the easel.

Longtime friends, some cross-mixing, some laughter.

 

The collage exploration continues to fascinate me. I went from earlier just-barely-landscape versions (about 8-10 years ago) with altered papers, book bits, pattern paper, a bit of paint:

 

Wetlands, 6″x6″.

 

To the collaged maps, made with many bits of hand-dyed rice papers and other things (wasp wing, samara, dried leaves, pattern paper, old books, a bit of paint):

 

Hudson Canyon, collage on board, 12″x12″, 2018.

 

To a simplified version of the above, where I am working more with effects created while dying the papers, and then using larger swaths of them. Here are some of my latest:

 

Dancing Trees, 4″x12″.

 

Wrapped up in a Bow, 4″x4″.

 

Lost and Found, 4″x4″.

 

Conga Line, 4″x4″.

 

I am very pleased with this beautifully produced recording of my December interview with audience Q&A at Albert Shahinian Fine Art, by Brett Barry of Silver Hollow Audio.  The discussion ranges from my decades  of contemporary landscape painting to the environmental themes of my Atlas/Forms of Water show to the gallery-artist  relationship.  You can listen here:

 

 

I am doing final updates on the blog post about this Atlas Project show, which was the highlight of my exhibition season for 2019. Here is the link:

https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/atlas-forms-of-water-2019/

On this day of pouring snow, everything else I had planned has been canceled. And so, I get to be in here:

 

And soon enough, it will look like this: